


Constructed

by pauraque



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Androids, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Self-Acceptance, Turing Fest 2020, post-Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:40:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24896320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: A constructed language, a constructed person. Soji comes to Earth, and finds herself thinking in Viveen.
Relationships: Soji Asha & Jean-Luc Picard
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26
Collections: Turing Fest 2020, Women of Star Trek





	Constructed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laurus_nobilis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurus_nobilis/gifts).



As _La Sirena_ approaches Earth, Soji finds herself thinking in Viveen. Since the day she spent 142.4 seconds flipping through the dictionary and accompanying grammatical sketch, she has known it like a mother tongue.

As with all languages, in Viveen there are some things that are easier to say, captured by a single word while others must use more. The language has a rich vocabulary of color and visual pattern. When she sees Earth below them, her mind promptly supplies the word _lamessif_ —a swirl of white over blue. It grounds her; unlike her memories of living on the planet, her memory of learning that word is real.

Similarly, when she and Picard have beamed down to the surface and are walking side by side towards his home, the word _camiresta_ paints the picture of the hazy yellow light of summer that hangs lazily over the vineyard far better than any word in English, or Romulan, or any other language she speaks.

Picard's dog is the first to greet them. He races down the path kicking up dust behind him, barking in excitement as he goes. A few meters ahead of them, he skids to a halt—lowers his body in uncertainty.

Picard crouches down too. The dog creeps forward hesitantly at first, sniffing, then seems to decide all at once that he can believe his eyes and nose after all, and tackles Picard, his whole body wagging furiously along with his tail, wriggling with joy in his master's arms.

"I was worried he wouldn't recognize me," Picard admits, laughing and cringing away as the dog licks his face in ecstasy. He rubs the dog's body, gives him a slap on the rear, and stands again.

The dog dances around them in delight as they continue on down the path, racing ahead and then returning to gaze up worshipfully at Picard, ensuring that he's really still there. After a minute he seems to notice Soji, and asks for her attention too, bumping his hand up under her hand. She can't help but grin as she strokes his short, stiff fur, and rubs her thumb over the wrinkles on top of his head before he dashes away again. Yet she also wonders—has she ever petted a dog before? In reality, and not only in carefully constructed sensory maps programmed into her memory banks? Perhaps not. But as of today, she has.

When they reach the house, the dog runs inside barking, as though to announce the master's long-awaited arrival. The people who answer his call are two Romulans, a man and a woman, who look nearly as pleased at Picard's safe return as the dog was. The woman grasps him in a hard embrace, nearly knocking the wind out of him. The man hangs back a little, only placing his hand softly on Picard's shoulder.

The curve of the man's ear makes Soji's stomach twist—Narek. But no... these Romulans are safe. Soji can see that from the way Picard's hands rest easily against the woman's sweater as he hugs her back, relaxed and unafraid.

The woman steps back and holds Picard by the shoulders, searching his face with fierce concern. "Are you all right? Truly?"

He nods, pats her hand with a wry smile. "Better than ever. _Truly_. I'll explain everything, I promise. But first, we're going to need a moment."

The man is already looking at Soji, his head tilted to the side, intent but restrained. Now the woman notices her too, and gives her a startled up-and-down appraisal. The Romulans share a glance, but manage to contain their obviously burning curiosity. They obediently disappear into another room, leaving Picard and Soji alone. Soji will be able to hear their quiet conversation from anywhere in the house, but will do her best to ignore it, allowing them their privacy too.

They pass through Picard's study, and Soji pauses with a smile, recognizing it from its holographic imitation on _La Sirena_. Her eyes alight on the painting on the wall, a woman in white watching a stormy sea. This, too, she recognizes, though much differently; in the duration of a blink, she recalls each stroke of the brush on the day that Data painted it, many years before she was created. Again she thinks in Viveen: _Lamessif_. Swirls of white over deep green-blue.

Picard has stopped, looking back at her and following her gaze. "You can have it, if you like," he says. "It is a painting of you, after all. But that's not what I wanted to show you."

He leads her to a small guest bedroom overlooking the fields, with white linen curtains blowing gently on either side of the open window. The dog trots in behind them and lies down in a sunny spot, perhaps not wanting to let Picard out of his sight.

"When your sister came to me for help, she stayed here for a short time," Picard explains, retrieving something small from the chest of drawers by the bed, and then sitting down. "As you already know, she left her necklace here." (Soji's hand automatically goes to her throat, where she now wears both identical silver pendants.) "But she also left something else behind. She must have dropped it when she fled the house."

Soji sits down beside him, cocking her head curiously to see. He opens his hand—which is just as it was, every spot and wrinkle perfectly reconstructed—and she sees that he is holding a little rectangular object, six centimeters by nine, made of brushed metal and decorated in an embroidery-like pattern. She takes it from him and finds that it opens with a click, revealing a small number of plastic cards inside.

The first is a student ID from Regulus III Science Academy—a school Dahj never attended, though her name and holographic picture on the card claim otherwise. This object was created for her before she left Coppelius, as Soji is now able to remember.

The card beneath it reads _Boston Public Library_.

It is an entirely mundane thing. Just a gray plastic card with a scannable code, slightly smudged and worn from being handled. This is something Dahj would have obtained in her short time on Earth, when she didn't know who or what she was: a time when she was an ordinary person who simply wanted to check out a library book.

Soji holds the card tightly in her hand, pressing its edge into her palm. A tear escapes the corner of her eye and trickles down her cheek.

"My... housekeepers found it after she left," Picard says gently. "They tried to use it to turn up some information on where she might have gone, but by then it was too late. I thought you ought to have it now."

Soji doesn't ask why housekeepers would be investigating a missing person, nor why any human would have Romulans as housekeepers. Instead she nods, feeling a terrible tightness in her chest as she puts the cards away. "Thank you," she says, and wipes her eye with the back of her wrist. "I think... I think the worst moment in all of this was when I wasn't sure if Dahj was even real. To think that someone you loved never even existed..." She shakes her head and swallows hard. "It was a worse kind of loss than just knowing she was dead."

"She was real," Picard says. He says it quietly, but emphatically, and his voice carries an undertone that Soji recognizes as the anxious insistence of a person who knows very well what it's like to have moments of uncertainty about what is real and what is not.

"I know," Soji replies, and places her hand on top of Picard's where it lies on the green and yellow checkered quilt. "And so are you. If you weren't, I think he would know." She directs a glance at the dog, who is lying on the floor with his head on his crossed paws, looking up at Picard with an expression of adoration; he lets out a heavy sigh, utterly at peace.

Picard chuckles. "I expect you're right."

Soji turns her eyes upward, her gaze wandering over the walls and the ceiling of the room in which her sister once sat. They are painted in a color that in Viveen is called _selafina_ —the clean, pure, heartlifting blue of a perfectly cloudless sky. A constructed word from an invented language, its form and sound crafted not by millions of speakers over thousands of years of etymological evolution, but by a child sitting at his desk and gazing out the window on some _selafina_ afternoon.

It is a word as good as any other: beautiful, useful, and real.


End file.
